Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Summersville Lake possibly on Whippoorwill Cliffs, WV , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Green Hole, WV , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Black Water Falls, WV, 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Sliding Rock, WV , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Birch Run, WV , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Knapp Creek, WV , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

Thank G-d for Mississippi:  Bull Run, WV also called Blue Hole , 2009 FujiFlex Digital C-Print   55 x 44 Inches

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In my recent photographic series, Thank G-d for Mississippi, I returned to my home state of West Virginia to photograph the area’s most common sites of fatal or near-fatal suicide jumps. Using a boom to suspend my camera ten feet over these edges and cliffs, I photographed the view only seen by individuals once they have jumped. The photograph suspends us in the moment between decision and result, arresting time between life and death. This work represents the individual implications of the depressed socio-economics of West Virginia, the “canary in the mine” for social conditions that later reverberate throughout the nation.1

1 West Virginia continually ranks second lowest (above Mississippi) in most national socio-economic measures, including a correlative high rate of suicides, inspiring common use of the phrase “Thank G-d for Mississippi.”

Thank G-d For Mississippi